Chapter 12 The Gates of Doom by Rafael Sabatini
NATURE TRIUMPHANT
On the morrow Captain Gaynor made his preparations for leaving England.
He had learnt upon returning to Priory Close of the messenger who had sought him there, and thus realised how narrow had been his escape. For the present, however, he had obtained—thanks to Mr Templeton and his own wit—a temporary respite, and that respite he proposed to employ in giving my Lord Pauncefort his quietus. He looked upon this as a sacred duty, and he could not account himself at liberty to depart out of England until he had discharged it. His intention, therefore, was to return to London, and that very day seek out his lordship and, wherever he found him, force upon him a quarrel demanding immediate adjustment. He reflected that the affair would serve him well, and would leave Mr Templeton with an obvious explanation of his subsequent flight from England. He should be glad of that, for he had no reason to embroil the Second Secretary, who had been so very good a friend to him.
He began that morning by desiring his valet, Fisher, to pack his few belongings, and by informing Fisher that once London were reached he would be obliged by circumstances to dispense with a body servant. The valet, who in the week during which he had served the Captain had found him not only a kind and considerate master, but further had been drawn to him by that magnetism which the Captain's strong personality irradiated, was so distressed as to seek the reason of this.
"I am very sorry, sir," he said. "I hope your Honour has no cause to be displeased with me. I have done my best, but there has been little opportunity—"
"It isn't that," said the Captain. He laid a hand upon the little man's shoulder, and looked kindly into his sharp face. "You have done very well, and I am sorry to part with you. But—to take you into my confidence, which you'll respect, I know—I have an affair on my hands."
"Oh, sir!" the fellow cried, with quick understanding, and Gaynor was moved by the look of concern that leapt into those keen eyes.
"If it end one way, Fisher," the Captain continued, "I shall require no more servants. If it end the other—as I am trustful it will—I shall be put to it to fly the country, and I cannot take you with me."
"But why not, sir?" cried the valet. "I've travelled aforetime. I was in France and Italy with his Grace of Wharton when I had the honour to serve him. I know foreign ways. I—"
"I do not doubt it at all, my friend," the Captain interrupted him. "But there are reasons why I cannot take you, reasons for which you must not press."
"I shouldn't dream of such a liberty, sir."
"Then we must leave it there. I am sorry, Fisher, sorry to part with you."
"And I am sorry, sir," said the little man with profound sincerity
"Thank you, Fisher."
"Thank you, sir."
Then the Captain went downstairs. He was touched a little by the valet's manner. It seemed to increase the burden that was upon him. He was almost obsessed by a sense of imminent evil, born, no doubt, of the impending farewell that he must make to one with whom he must leave, it seemed, a part of himself—and that the better part—when he rode away that day.
He was exercised, too, by the continued absence of Sir John Kynaston. There was news that, Sir John's brother being now out of all danger, the baronet would be returning on the morrow or the day after. But Captain Gaynor dared not wait and the abruptness of his departure demanded an explanation; more, the events which had transpired in these last few days made it necessary to convey a warning to the baronet. Yet how was he to accomplish it? Write, he dared not; for letters are ever dangerous and liable to miscarriage, and the things he had to say might, if written, come to prove a deadly witness against Sir John. Thus he was driven to the decision that he must entrust his messages by word of mouth to Evelyn—by whom, of course, he meant Damaris.
He reflected that Sir John might prefer her to remain—like the rest of the household—in ignorance of her father's slight association with the Jacobite Cause; but he had no alternative. It was a choosing of the lesser of two evils; and, after all, he had perceived in this sweet lady such admirable qualities of head and heart that he was comparatively easy in his mind at the thought of confiding in her. Moreover, he would so put it as not to betray Sir John even to her in any unnecessary degree. With this intent he sought her now.
He was informed by a servant that Miss Kynaston was with her ladyship in the latter's withdrawing-room. Thither he went, to find, of course, Lady Kynaston and Evelyn. They accorded him a pleasant, friendly welcome. He hesitated to ask for the lady whom he sought, and he was spared the need, for through the window he espied her walking in the garden.
Yet for all his haste to join her there, he must linger awhile in a properly deliberate exchange of courtesies with his hostess. She had been perusing The Daily Courant of yesterday when he entered, and, presumably for lack of other matter, she alluded to something she had read.
"Did you hear aught in town, sir, of these knavish Jacobites who are again attempting to undermine the peace of the realm?" she asked him, and in the main, she was quoting words that she had read.
"I heard something, madam," he answered lightly.
"Ah!" said she. "You do not treat the matter with a proper seriousness."
"Is it very serious, ma'am?" he asked her.
"Serious? Why, the notorious Captain Jenkyn is in England again."
"Pooh! A rumour, no doubt."
"Nay, sir, no rumour—a report."
"'Tis all one, mother dear," said Evelyn from the window, where she was standing. "I hope they will not take him," she added, and paid that gallant unknown the tribute of a sigh.
"You hope they will not take him, Evelyn!" Her ladyship was outraged by such a sentiment. "The man is a dangerous and pernicious rebel. And they'll take him, never fear."
"I wonder!" said Captain Gaynor.
"Look at this," she bade him, and held out The Courant.
He took the news-sheet, and followed the indication of her finger. But there was not the need of it. The bold announcement at the foot of the second column challenged every eye:
ADVERTISEMENT
WHEREAS it is reported to his Majesty's Government that the notorious rebel and Jacobite spy and agent who is known as Captain Jenkyn is at this present time in England, his Majesty's Secretary of State hereby gives notice that any who shall bring such information as will lead to the arrest and conviction of the said rebel shall receive from his Majesty's Treasury the sum of TWELVE HUNDRED GUINEAS in REWARD.
"His value is increasing, it seems," said the Captain, returning the sheet to her ladyship. "Poor devil!" he added, and soon afterwards found an excuse upon which he might withdraw and go to join Damaris in the garden.
"Madam," he said, bowing formally before her, "I am come—alas!—to take my leave of you. But ere I go there is something I desire to say for your private ear, if you will so honour me."
He saw the quick blood leap to her cheeks and ebb thence again, leaving her very white; he saw that droop of the brown eyes, the sudden agitation of her breast, the little quiver of her hand upon the briar from which she had been about to break a rose.
He knew then how she misunderstood his aims; knew that she cared; and the knowledge was as a sword in his flesh.
"Yes," she answered faintly. "I am listening, Captain Gaynor."
He hesitated yet a moment. Then: "Will you walk, madam?" he invited her, his voice oddly subdued, faltering a little even.
She turned at his bidding, and together they took their way at a gentle pace towards the plantation; they crossed the bridge, and followed the main valley of the glorious garden; and all this with no word spoken between them, yet such a communion of soul and soul as gladdened her and left him sick with fierce despair.
She imagined that she understood why he led her to the garden. She remembered how he had spoken of it as enchanted, a place wherein a man might be content to lay down ambition and have done with strife. It was here, too, that they had first talked to any purpose. It was almost as if they had met there, under the apple-blossom, for until that talk they had been as utter strangers. There it was that he had first revealed himself with all that stark honesty which she found so admirable in him, that it more than made amends for his avowed lack of great ideals. She was touched by his desire that they should talk now in such a place; that he should have chosen this garden of enchantment, in which he had erst revealed himself, to reveal himself yet more fully unto her alone.
Rejoicing, she went with him thither, as she would have gone with him wheresoe'er he bade her. Was she not his to claim? And in that hour she was glad indeed of the deception that had been practised, glad that he had not known her for the heiress, Damaris Hollinstone. For thus was she brought to the sweet and tranquil conviction that here was one who desired her for her own self and not for aught that she might have to give. She was glad, too, that she was Damaris Hollinstone and rich, and glad that he was poor. Thus should be increased the joy and blessing that would be hers in giving—for she was of those selfless ones who, where they love, desire to give and give. She knew that she was good to look upon; and in this too she took joy that morning, since this too had she to give.
She was dreaming as she stepped along beside him, a happy dream whose fulfilment she deemed impending. Why did he not speak? she wondered. Did he hesitate, poor lover? Did he doubt her? God wot, there was but little need for that. Furtively, shyly she glanced aside at him, to observe at last his haggard look and wrinkled brow.
Dear heart! How needlessly was he torturing himself! How fondly she longed for the uttered word that should give her the right to drive forth his fears, to transfigure his face and smooth away those lines. Yet she loved him the more for this most sweet timidity towards her in one whom she judged of a nature that normally was bold and fearless.
And then, at last, he spoke, his voice singularly small and quiet; and his first words shattered that dream-paradise of hers so abruptly that for an instant she was stunned and numb.
"It is of Sir John that I desire to speak to you, madam," he said. "I have a message for him of gravest import—so grave that I dare not write it, lest an ill-chance should put it into hands that might use it against him."
Mechanically she walked on. She was choking. Her face was deathly pale; her eyes seemed suddenly enlarged in it and very dark; her mouth was trembling. But he observed naught of this. He did not observe her at all. He was looking away through the sundrenched orchard on their right.
Followed a little spell of silence, in which they came to the first of those courts enclosed in their tall, boxwood settings. He stood aside to let her pass first through the narrow archway in that massive hedge. He followed, and they stood in the rose-garden, which was now all fire and snow with petals red and white.
"You will tell him, madam, that I am grieved beyond all mention that I may not stay another day for his return, to take my leave of him in person; that I dare not; that with every hour I tarry now in England the shadow of the gallows falls more heavily across my path."
She came out of her stupor, awakened by the sinister image he had employed.
"The gallows?" she cried, horror in every line of her lovely face. "You are in danger!"
Deliberately had he spoken so, hoping that his words would convey not only the intended message to Sir John, but a message to her too that should explain his need to preserve silence upon the subject on which she looked to hear from him. Yet now that he saw and interpreted her alarm, his soul was torn with sobs unuttered. His eyelids flickered. But beyond that he gave no sign of the terrible ordeal he was sustaining, must sustain for honour's sake. His every nerve and fibre shrieked imperatively that he should take her in his arms, and claim her—who stood so ready for surrender—for his own. But the calm, cold voice of Honour warned him not to heed those treacherous behests of heedless Nature—of Nature, who knows naught of honour and such human shibboleths.
What manner of knave would he be, Honour demanded, to return the good that Sir John had ever done him by the evil of such a deed? To repay the baronet's trust and affection by stealing away his only child and bearing her with him upon his hapless wanderings?
Were Sir John here, things might be different. Captain Gaynor could have gone to him and loyally spoken what was in his heart, loyally abided by the baronet's decision. But without the baronet's consent—a consent which Gaynor deemed extremely unlikely—he must not speak to her of this thing with which his heart was bursting. And linger until Sir John's return, he dared not; not merely for the danger that he ran—that danger he would have faced most gladly—but because his presence in England might place in jeopardy those arrested Jacobites, against whom little could be enacted if he remained undiscovered, he must depart at once. The voice of Honour was very clear, and not to be misunderstood. It bade him be silent, and so depart.
So in that swift flicker of his eyelids he determined. He brushed aside with a disdainful gesture the suggestion that the danger he ran was one to occasion concern.
"The danger is naught," he said, "or will be naught so that I depart at once. And I mean not only danger to myself but danger to others who would be implicated were I taken. Please remember this that you may tell him. And that the principal ones of my master's friends have been prematurely arrested; that no great harm threatens them, but that for the present I have been obliged to abandon my mission; that I shall not go to Rochester, nor indeed take any further steps, but shall return immediately to Rome.
"That, I think, is all that I need say. The rest he will infer. But add that there is a warrant out for my arrest—though not in my own name, as the Government is not yet assured that my identity and that of the person sought are one and the same. And before the Government has such assurance—if indeed it ever has it—I hope to be very far away. Bid him spare himself anxieties on my account. My plans are soundly laid, and I have a friend at Court upon whose offices I am depending.
"Tell him just that, madam," he concluded, his eyes ever avoiding hers, "just that and my deep devotion. He will understand why I was forced to this precipitate flight, and he will know how to guard himself from any consequences of having sheltered me in the event of my being ultimately identified with—with the man for whom the warrant has been issued."
"I will remember all," she said—indeed, every word of it was seared upon her memory—"and I will tell him. But you, sir"—her voice dropped a little, and her tone by its gentleness seemed to belie the words she uttered—"you have deceived me."
He looked up sharply. "Deceived you—I?"
"You represented yourself to me as an adventurer, a follower of Fortune's banner, a mercenary who sold his sword to the highest bidder."
"All this I have been—all this I am," he answered. "I practised no deceit."
"You practise it still," she said, her pride in him increased a thousandfold by her discovery. "You spoke but now of a mission and of your master in Rome. You are a Jacobite, that much you have made plain—one who in the pursuit of an ideal imperils his life and moves, in your own words, under the shadow of the gallows. Yet," she reproached him almost fondly, so caressingly protesting was her tone, "you represented yourself to me as a hireling; you provoked and submitted to my scorn."
He trembled, looked at her, then looked away across the flaming roses. His first impulse was to say that in this too he was a mercenary; that what he did, he did for gold. First the falsehood stayed him; then the reflection that even that falsehood could not serve him now. He had won her love; her every word and look assured him of it. Should he then be so ungenerous as to maintain this hateful pretence that she was nothing to him? Could that serve any but a hurtful purpose? Was it not better that he, too, should let her see how it was with him? Was it not better that she should know that where unwittingly he had conquered he had been conquered also? That she should hold this knowledge would, he felt, comfort him; and her too it might comfort. Some day—who knew?
But there he went too fast. He would convey it, but not utter it. To utter it were to break down the barriers which Honour had raised up.
"You are right," he said gently. "I crave your pardon."
"My pardon?" she echoed. "My pardon—for being noble where I deemed you base!"
"Nay, for the deceit I put unworthily upon you."
"Why did you?" she asked him, the intimacy between them growing now with an odd and alarming swiftness.
"To be consistent in the part I played. Had any known my secret, all must know it. Yet there was no untruth in my deceit. I was a mercenary in all other services but this. And of this I dared not speak—at least not then."
"And now?" she asked him without shyness.
"Now?" He looked at her, full into her steadfast eyes that were drawing his very soul from him. "Now to make amends I will place my life in your gentle hands. God knows it is all I have to give." He laughed a little ruefully. She was trembling. "I am he whom the Government knows by the name of Captain Jenkyn."
She fell back with a little cry. She needed no explanation. She, too, had seen The Daily Courant that morning and the Secretary of State's announcement. She turned white to the lips, realising at last to the full the overwhelming peril in which he stood. She clasped her hands.
"Oh, God of pity!" was her moan. And then, in an agony: "Why—oh, why did you tell me this?"
The appeal was more than he could endure. Impulse shattered Honour's barriers at a blow, and struck Honour herself silent, whilst Nature swept on triumphant and irresistible.
He strode to her, caught her in his arms and crushed her to him. His voice shook with mingled pain and exultation.
"Because I love you, oh, my lady!" he cried. "Because all that I have, all that I am I would place in your sweet hands in pledge of it."
"I asked not any pledge," she sobbed in a gladness that mounted and overrode her terror. His head drooped to her upturned face, and they kissed. "Dear love," she murmured, as she lay there happily upon his breast, "I, too, must make confession."
"Confess, dear sinner," he replied, "and be very sure of shrift."
"I am glad that you deceived me, for I too have practised a deceit on you."
"Deceit—thou?" his voice was scornful.
"I am not Evelyn," she confessed, watching his face, observing the cloud that gathered on his brow. "I am Damaris Hollinstone."
The cloud grew darker, then suddenly it vanished utterly and he laughed.
"Faith, then, I'm glad," said he, "for Damaris is a sweeter and more fitting name."
"And for no other reason?" she inquired.
"What other could there be? You are you under whatever name you please."
And so they hung there, the world and all its perils sunk many a fathom deep into oblivion, conscious of naught but each other—just man and woman in a garden.
From behind the boxwood hedge stepped, soft-footed, a hidden watcher. Another—a golden-headed, fragile slip of womanhood, fled, shuddering and weeping softly in an agony of remorse at the catastrophe she had invoked, a catastrophe that overleapt her every expectation and spread grim tragedy where she had thought to set a comedy with a spice of malice.
Through the archway into that Eden stepped the inevitable Satan, wearing the handsome outward seeming of my Lord Pauncefort. He paused an instant, himself unobserved, to consider the idyll that he came to shatter with a bloody hand. And what time he paused, he set upon his seething rage the mask of a sardonic humour.
"Soho!" he announced himself. "Here is not merely a rebel, but a rebel in arms, it seems."